- Aquaculture and other factors like climate change pose a potentially mortal threat to wild Atlantic salmon, so a new bill in the Icelandic parliament should be rejected, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard argues in a new op-ed.
- More than 65% of Icelanders polled agree with him in opposing open-net salmon farming, which the bill would allow to expand despite the fact that it employs a small fraction of those working in the tourism sector, and which relies heavily on the nation’s natural beauty and healthy wildlife populations.
- “Icelandic ministers can listen to reason and citizens and set an example of responsibility, rather than giving in to the worldwide aquaculture industry,” Chouinard writes.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
In a little more than 50 years, the population of wild North Atlantic salmon has plummeted by 75%. Today, it is estimated that fewer than 60,000 exist in and around Iceland. Unless we do something soon, we may be condemning what Icelandic environmentalist and wild fish advocate Orri Vigfússon has called the “king of fish” to extinction.
Warmer waters caused by climate change already pose a potential mortal threat to wild salmon (Salmo salar). If Iceland’s legislature passes the latest draft of its aquaculture bill and opens the country to more salmon farms, the fish will be headed toward disappearance even faster.
I’ve visited Iceland regularly since 1960 and have personally seen the decline of wild salmon in the rivers. Expanding open net-pen fish farming in Iceland would compound an already critical problem and open the country to disaster, both for wild fish and the environment.
It is no secret that these farms are ecological scourges, even when they function as designed. But when they fail, the effects are catastrophic.
If you’ve never seen an open net-pen salmon farm before, picture an array of massive floating cylindrical cages that run 30-50 meters (about 100-160 feet) down from the surface of the water. There may be 16 pens on a farm, each holding 100,000 salmon or more.
Feeding such huge numbers of carnivorous fish takes millions of pounds of food made with fishmeal and oil sourced from wild populations of other fish. We are decimating populations of sardines, herring and others to feed farmed salmon in pens that are polluting waters all over the world with heavy metals, microplastics, pesticides, antibiotics and waste.
Then there’s the issue of salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis).
These tiny crustaceans feed on salmon and are a normal part of life in the ocean. The issue comes from when a pen full of fish turns into a feeding frenzy for lice. Infestations cause widespread injuries, and if left untreated, massive die-offs. Outbreaks of lice in farms also affect wild salmon up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) away. Young fish are particularly vulnerable and can be weakened by the parasites or killed outright.
The treatments aren’t much better. Getting rid of sea lice usually involves pumping toxic chemicals into the water that kill the lice or inhibit molting, and these chemicals can also affect lobsters, crabs or other crustaceans living downstream.
In other words, we are annihilating stocks of wild fish (that humans can eat), killing crustaceans, contributing to antibiotic resistance, and polluting our waters, all to keep cheap salmon on menus and in grocery stores around the world.
And when those fish escape, all hell breaks loose.
In 2017, tens of thousands of farmed fish escaped into the wild when multiple cages in a salmon farm in Washington state in the U.S. broke apart. When these events happen, the sheer number of escaped salmon can overwhelm their wild counterparts in the hunt for food and habitat.
If the farmed salmon, which are bred to be docile and fatten up as quickly as possible, mix into wild populations and breed, it effectively undoes generations’ worth of evolution by adding those blunted genes into the highly evolved wild pool. The Washington farm collapse was so bad that in the aftermath, the state passed a law to phase out open net-pen salmon farming altogether.
A similar event happened in Iceland in 2023, but the latest version of the aquaculture bill the Icelandic parliament is considering does little to prevent such a disaster from happening again. If anything, it makes it more likely.
This bill may seem like a local issue on the surface, but pollution and harm from these farms flows into other ecosystems. Opposing aquaculture farms, which 65% of Icelanders do, is a rejection of nature-destroying development and clear support for protecting a keystone species: wild salmon.
It makes financial sense, too.
More than 34,000 people are employed in the tourism industry in Iceland, which brings in more than $7 billion that stays within the country and communities. Compare that with the largely Norwegian-owned aquaculture industry, which employs just hundreds and exports both the fish and revenue that net-pen fish farms generate.
Patagonia, the company I founded in 1973, has supported efforts to protect the planet and life on it for decades. You could say the first grant we ever issued was to save wild fish. Since then, we’ve produced media projects like Laxaþjóð | A Salmon Nation about the threats open net-pen fish farms pose to Iceland and built meaningful partnerships with wild fish advocacy groups like the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, WildFish and the Icelandic Wildlife Fund.
In 2024, I said the efforts against salmon farms were like a war, but I believed we could win. I still believe that.
Icelandic ministers can listen to reason and citizens and set an example of responsibility, rather than giving in to the worldwide aquaculture industry, which also faces a worrying list of accusations.
Iceland can stand up for nature and protect what makes the country truly special.
Yvon Chouinard is the founder of clothing brand Patagonia.
Banner image: Still image from the film “A Salmon Nation” courtesy of Patagonia Films.
See related coverage:
Salmon farms under fire on U.S. East Coast after being shuttered on West Coast
Scottish salmon farms seek growth despite mounting fish deaths and environmental concerns
New environmental rules for Chile’s protected areas rile the salmon industry
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